Greetings The CPA911 Newsletter June 2010 ------ > Contents < ------ QuickBooks Tips Enterprise to Pro/Premier Conversion Phony E-mail Warning Contact Info Subscription Info ------ > QuickBooks TIPS < ------ *** How to Avoid Accidental Billable Costs *** Many users link a job to an expense in order to do job costing, and don't want to invoice the customer for the expense. QuickBooks automatically selects "Billable" when you enter a customer or job in the Enter Bills or Write Checks windows, and sometimes you may not remember to deselect the billable check mark. That means your job costing reports are wrong, and it also means that when you prepare an invoice for a customer with an accidental billable cost you'll be surprised by a message asking if you want to add your accumulated billable costs to the invoice. Before you create job costing reports, and/or before you begin invoicing customers, do a last-minute check to see if any expenses were inadvertently marked "Billable". Choose Reports, Jobs, Time & Mileage, Unbilled Costs by job. All transactions with costs marked "Billable" are displayed. Double-click each transaction and find the checkmarks in the Billable column. Deselect the check mark and save the transaction. When the report has no listings, it's safe to run job costing reports and create invoices. Then, use the Feedback command on the Help menu to tell Intuit there should be a Preference setting for whether costs linked to jobs should default to Billable or Not Billable. *** Lost or Forgotten Closing Date Password *** We frequently receive queries from users who can't remember the password they set for the Closing Date and want to make changes to a transaction in a closed period. (We're assuming the changes are minor, such as memo text, and don't affect numbers that were used in a filed tax form.) It's easy to change the password; just delete the current password and enter a new one. You don't have to know the current password to make changes. However, only the QuickBooks Admin can enter the password, so be sure nobody else has your Admin password *** Displaying Only the Subitem *** Readers ask how to display only the subitem on sales transactions, because the full text of an item-subitem takes up so much room. You can't do this, but it's a good idea. Use the Feedback command on the Help menu to suggest this to Intuit. *** Tracking Transfers Between Banks *** A reader couldn't figure out how to create a report that shows all the funds transferred between bank accounts. Choose Reports, Accountant & Taxes, Transaction Detail by Account. Select the Date Range you need. Click Modify Report. Go to the Filters tab. Select Account as the filter, and then select All Bank Accounts. Select Transaction Type as the filter, and then select Transfer. *** Debit Card Credits *** Many readers are puzzled about entering credits they receive when they return a product they purchased with a debit card, and use the debit card for the credit transaction. When you use a debit card to purchase something, you enter it as a check that has no check number (you can use a code such as DC for the check number or just leave the check number field blank). When you get a debit card credit, the same logic applies; the money will be deposited in the bank so the transaction is a bank deposit. You can enter it directly into the bank register, or in the Make Deposits transaction window. Just enter the amount and post the transaction to the account you used when you made the original purchase with the debit card. If the credit transaction takes place after the end of the fiscal year, check with your accountant about the posting account. Your accountant may not want you to reduce the current year expense for the posting account and therefore may recommend you create an Other Income account or Other Expense account named Purchase Returns. Note that if the purchase was for a job and you're doing job costing, the Make Deposits transaction window has a column to note the Customer:Job name - the bank register doesn't offer this field. ------ > Enterprise to Pro/Premier Conversion < ------ We have many messages from users who want to abandon Enterprise Solutions and move to Pro/Premier. However, you can't open an Enterprise File in Pro or Premier; instead you must convert your Enterprise data and import it into Pro or Premier. These e-mails cite several reasons for moving away from Enterprise Solutions, and one of these days we may "editorialize" on this subject. However, for now we'll just say that doing this requires a conversion process. We recommend the Enterprise-To-Pro-Or-Premier conversion services offered at q2q. Karl Irvin, the developer of q2q software, is an accomplished expert and our clients have had excellent results with his utilities (so have we). You can download the software and perform the conversion yourself, or have q2q perform the conversion for you. More information is available at: http://www.q2q.us/EnterpriseToPro.htm ------ > Beware of Phony E-mail from Intuit < ------ Once again there is a spurt of e-mail purporting to come from Intuit. The latest scam claims to let you download Intuit Secure Software to protect your files. There is no application from Intuit by this name. To avoid adding malware to your computer, do NOT click any of the links in the e-mail message. You can report these malware e-mails and check with Intuit about known scams at the following URL: http://security.intuit.com/ ------ > CONTACT INFO < ------ Copyright 2010 CPA911. Comments or questions? Write to: editor@cpa911.com. 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